I have been working on a web comic for a couple months. I am not experienced in the way of art so I am looking for helpful advice and critiques to help me develop my art style. I struggle with posing my characters so they don't look as if they are always facing straight forward. I am working on getting my environments to look better so they don't seem so flat and odd looking. I also struggle with shading for depth and realism. I currently draw by hand on card stock and then scan it to computer where I color it with graphicsgale (tools I have available).

If you are interested in viewing the overall progression of my art you may see the comic at http://www.epicsofvlad.com/ I feel as if I am gradually making improvements but am looking to facilitate that growth.Below is an example of one of my most recent strips. Tear into it please and leave me with improved understanding of my flaws and growth potential!

The most noticeable thing is the small amount of detail on a huge space. There's no reason to make the pages so big, especially if there's not much going on in the background. It draws attention to the emptiness behind the characters. The panels that feature just one guy talking can be vertical.

Like in this page with an empty forest path it looks like sponges on a green liquid. I'm not great with trees and bushes but you might want to give the contours shapes of round leaves and grass blades. I would also add some stones or twigs on the path here and there....Of course, I also suffer from the lazy background syndrome and I'm trying to cover it up with crude polygon tricks so... yeah But at least one panel should show the new location in detail. Like the one you put on your main page.

As for the characters, I can't help much since I'm not da Vinci myself... When you try do draw them from angles, it helps to sketch them out as blocks and cylinders to avoid stiffness and errors.And I think you're being shy with the shadows. They are ok, make them a little bigger!

One of my focuses over the next month or so is to develop my ability to draw more complete backgrounds and environments. I do like the idea of breaking up the square feeling of my strips though. I am experimenting with things a little bit at a time to see how they look and feel. I have posted in a few forums like this and I am taking note of all the comments. Thank you for all of the feedback.